GleepLog

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I’ve had an RDIO account for a couple of days now so since my 3 day trial membership is about to expire I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

The Model

The model is interesting because you can put any music you can find in your queue.  It’s not like Pandora’s “we play songs and you have limited control over what gets played” model.  I find this interesting… but annoying.

I was not comfortable with Pandora at first.  I fought the control mechanism.  I eventually relented and became used to it.  Now I pick a station and just run with it for hours unless the selections start repeating or veering wildly.

With RDIO you have to fill the queue yourself and manage it like your Netflix account.  It’s great that you can do this but I just wish I could put it on autopilot.  My queue keeps draining and I have to got put stuff back in.

Interface

My first reaction to the Web UI was that it was fairly slick (although I did get a weird error the first time I logged in which is probably fixed for future signups) and I was able to figure out where to go to get to the major features fairly quickly.  I had to poke and prod for a while to get to where I could “manage” my queue, however.  I’m still not sure what I should add to my collection and what to put in my queue, either.

The desktop apps for RDIO and Pandora frankly suck.  The Air platform may have a lot of appeal for developers but it’s a memory pig and it’s convoluted.  The RDIO app has a slight edge over the Pandora app in that it has a few more options.

Prices

I like the idea that RDIO features content you can buy and download from them instead of the affiliate model Pandora uses.  I haven’t actually bought any music though because their prices seemed very high!  I like the fact that there are two price points and would probably be fine with the web only tier for $4.99 a month even though that’s a big jump over my Pandora One subscription.

Discovery

I like the idea that the discovery mechanism in RDIO is based on a social graph instead of a computer algorithm.  My network is rather limited because I just joined recently and invites are slowly spreading.  I’m curious if the discovery will work better as my network expands but so far I prefer the discovery process on Pandora.  I’ve discovered a fairly large number of artists because they have a sound similar to a band I already listen to. 

I suppose if it works right, the social network could achieve the same effect.  Only time will tell.

Summary

I think RDIO shows a lot of promise but I think its different enough from Pandora that they can co-exist.  It has the ability to scan your iTunes library (which resulted in this interesting bubble graph that shows that my wife has been loading music on my computer…) and add songs to your collection.

I can’t say for sure I’ll start paying for it when my trial ends but I’ll seriously consider it.  If you want an invite, hit me up on Twitter.

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What Happened?

As you might have heard, Twilio launched a massive new product this morning that’s going make a huge dent in the Virtual PBX market.  It’s called OpenVBX.

A little history

Twilio flew me out to San Francisco in March to get a look at an early version and I was very impressed.  We had a weekend hackathon and created plugins for it… but more about that later.

The advent of VBX changed the course of my startup, OtherNum, drastically.  We had been constructing, for almost a year, a platform very similar.  We had some features VBX did not but over the course of that weekend I was able to start filling in those gaps.

Jeff and the team at Twilio had wanted me to come out and see VBX because they knew about OtherNum and were aware of the overlap between the products.  When Jeff first told us why we had been brought to SF (we didn’t know until that first morning) I was a little stunned but as we learned more about the platform the more I realized this was a very good thing for us.

Some of the things we had struggled with or were about to tackle (like a drag and drop call flow editor) were already in VBX.  It didn’t make sense for us to continue building OtherNum anymore.  Instead I chose to pursue some sub-niches instead of primary PBX-like functionality and to work on plugins for VBX.

So what is VBX? 

VBX is an open source web application that interacts with Twilio’s API to implement advanced telephony functions normally found in expensive equipment.

It’s exactly the right solution for businesses with virtual offices, remote personnel and startups.

Here’s why:

1. It never goes down

If the power goes it in your office your $10,000 PBX is going to go offline.  You’ve got battery backup? Are you sure?  What if a construction worker cuts the phone lines? 

With a hardware PBX, your entire phone infrastructure depends on its physical environment.  With a virtual PBX

2. It never fills up

With a hardware solution, the memory available is finite.  Sure, you can upgrade it but that costs money and takes time. VBX uses cloud storage for recordings so you’ll never have to shell out cash to add extensions or voicemail boxes.

3. It takes 5 minutes to get started

You’ve heard of the famous 5 minute WordPress install?  Yeah.  It’s like that.

1. pull down the code
2. create an empty database
3. change permissions on two sub-directories
4. pull it up in a browser and enter your Twilio credentials.
5. done.

Plugins

So what else is so great about VBX? Plugins.

You want to have your PBX interact with your Twitter or FourSquare account or change its behavior based on time of day.  You want your PBX to interact with Chirbit, MyCaption.com or BART.  If you had a hardware PBX it would NEVER happen.

VBX makes it possible to write a plugin that does that and more.

My Plugins

I wrote the plugins for Chirbit, FourSquare and MyCaption during that weekend in San Francisco. The FourSquare plugin caught the attention of a bunch of people including TechCrunch, GigaOM, Albert Wenger and Fred Wilson.  My head was spinning all morning!

My Other Favorite Plugins

Mark Condon wrote a plugin that allowed you to define prompts in English and used Google APIs to translate your text into French, German and other languages and then speak it to the caller.

Jonathan Kressaty wrote multiple plugins, one of which allows you to change the behavior of your phone system depending on the time of the day.

In Conclusion

I’m very excited to have been a part of the VBX community from such an early stage and I look forward to working with it going forward.  I think it’s a great product in a really cool space and it’s going to push the virtual telephony world forward a few notches and in a hurry.

As some of you know, I’ve been coaching my daughter’s U10G soccer team this spring.  I’ve played soccer off and on but hardly ever in an organized fashion and I’ve never coached ANYTHING.

I didn’t know what to expect exactly when I signed up to coach the team.  I was worried I would screw it up for these girls and do a terrible job coaching them.

I have been working in IT since 1999 and I’ve worked at companies with 4 employees and 350,000 employees and held different managerial titles at most of them.  I have an MBA from the Georgia Institute of Technology that cost me $60,000 too. 

All garbage.

These 9 girls have taught me more about leadership, motivation, teamwork, dedication and persistence than any of that.

I’ve learned how to better channel their energy towards productivity and how to earn trust.  They’ve taught me patience and humility.

If you want to become a better leader, don’t take classes.  Get out on the field and coach.